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Evan Nyquist’s late goal gifts Bellefonte District Championship Win

Bellefonte’s Shane Cronin dribbles the ball against the Tyrone Golden Eagles. Bellefonte defeated Tyrone in the District Championship, 2-1.

By KENNY VARNER

For The Express

WINGATE – They simply made history!

In three previous attempts, the Bellefonte boys soccer team had come up short and finished as second place.

Not this year.

It took almost the entire 80 minutes to produce a winner, but in the end it would be the Red Raiders with the 2-1 victory over Tyrone Tuesday night at Alumni Stadium at Bald Eagle Area high school.

With the game knotted at one with 14:21 left in regulation, Bellefonte’s Evan Nyquist, picked up a bounce off a save in the goal and sent it home, giving the Red Raiders the 2-1 advantage.

From there, according to coach Scott Martz, the clock could not go fast enough.

“It seem to take forever. Evan cane over to me and said ‘I’m exhausted and I want out’. I told him that I can’t take you out and to just get back on defense and rest back there,” Martz said. “Just help back there then. My goal was to bring him back up because I wanted to try for another one, but we just had to try to hold on. Tyrone put a lot of pressure on us the last 14 minutes.”

Like in the girls’ title game, Bellefonte got a strong performance by goalkeeper Zach Spearly. He seemed to be everywhere, catching and scooping everything hit his way.

“Zach played absolutely incredible back there tonight,” Martz said. “He stepped up and had some beautiful saves.”

Things didn’t fare too well for Bellefonte in the first half as Tyrone drew the first goal of the game.

After dominating and keeping the ball on their own side, Corey Johnston scored on an unassisted, goal at 10:53.

Despite the Red Raiders being a step ahead of the Eagles all night, they still saw the half quickly coming and didn’t want to go into the intermission without a score.

But with 1:09 left, Dan Persiko made it a new game, tying things at one before the two teams headed into the half.

Coming out of the break, the tension started to mount and tensions were growing stronger.

After both teams took different chances at taking shots and taking the tempo, the “Red and Black Attack” took the lead with just over 14 minutes to play, Nyquist put it past the Tyrone goalkeeper and then was able to string out the defense the rest of the way to hold on for the win and its first ever District 6 title.

Bellefonte outshot Tyrone 13-12.

The champs will be back in action November 6 at a location, time and a team to play.

Bellefonte 2, Tyrone 1

T 1 0 – 1

B 1 1 – 2

Scoring

First half

T – Corey Johnston unassisted, 10:53.

B – Dan Persiko unassisted, 1:04.

Second half

B – Evan Nyquist unassisted, 14:21

Shots on goal: Bellefonte – 13, Tyrone 12.

Corners: Bellefonte 2, Tyrone 3

Saves: Zach Spearly (B) 9, Alex Roberts (T) 9.

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